


Origin

by ghostpun



Series: Birdmen Ghost Hunters AU [1]
Category: BIRDMEN - 田辺イエロウ | Tanabe Yellow
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Other, basically a chapter 4 parallel, slight takaeishi but its so faintly there theres no need to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 04:25:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16401278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostpun/pseuds/ghostpun
Summary: Takayama explains how he got his powers.(aka something I wrote for my Ghost Hunters AU)





	Origin

“Is your grandpa also a medium?”

It’s a simple question, but Takayama can’t help but to blink in slight surprise. He pauses for a second before he speaks.

“I’m…not quite sure. I never asked him,” he slowly admits.

“Is that so?” Karasuma, the boy questioning him, takes a second to adjust his glasses before continuing,“What about other family? It isn’t something hereditary?”

Takayama leans forward on his arms, staring off to the side.

“I have no other family,” he exhales quickly through a puff of breathe, “I used to live with my aunt but I…didn’t tell her.”

“Really?” Karasuma blurts out before he can stop himself.

“Well, as you can imagine, telling people I see dead people wouldn’t go so well,” He slightly teases, and grins when Karasuma’s demeanor turns to one of embarrassment. He tugs at the edges of his shirt sleeves, Takayama notes. 

“Oh. Right.” Karasuma squeaks, red dusting his cheeks. To help with his own embarrassment, he gingerly sits down across from Takayama, hands on knees.

“So… have you always been able to talk to ghosts?” He seems to slightly whisper it, a contrast to his previously loud exclamations and accusations. The red is more pronounced, and if Takayama had to guess, he was probably embarrassed that he just indirectly admitted to the existence of ghosts, something he was so adamantly against. Yesterday it seemed that, if you asked Takayama, the grumpy teenager probably would have rather eaten his own shoe than admit he was wrong about the supernatural.

“I can’t remember if I did as a kid. My abilities didn’t really…come in until…” Takayama feels himself drift off. He tastes the memory of metallic blood.

He’s aware of Karasuma leaning forward slightly, and his soft “Until?”, eggs Takayama on, gently leading him back to the now, to the sun beating on him and grass beneath him. He stares at Karasuma a bit, focuses on the stray hairs of his bangs that had fallen out of place. Takayama allows himself to remember.

“I was in 3rd grade, the airplane I boarded together with my parents crashed in the mountains of South America.” He vaguely watches Karasuma’s eyes widen, piecing his reality together. However, the grass beneath Takayama is now of the same texture as the plane seat. The blades that brush against his wrists remind him of his parents’ grasp.

“I had never been around so much death.” He hears himself say. He closes his eyes for a few moments, his brain paints the scene from years ago.

The plane was full of corpses. Takayama doesn’t know how many people could ride one plane, but on that day it felt like thousands. Thousands of corpses, tangling of limbs. All around him were people, dead, yet they still moved. They were transparent, and colored in a specific shade tailored to the individual. Red, Takayama never minded the color red, but he felt like it was stained onto him. Takayama’s eyes hurt from the overload. Everything hurt from the overload of all his senses. He can still feel the suffocation of then, the plane smoke mixed with his own anxiety. 

Yet young Takayama’s panic was cut short. Takayama takes in a sharp breath. 

“Then, I met her.” 

A woman had walked down the aisle, and Takayama was drawn. In the chaos of a spectrum of colors, she was monochrome. Her black hair, her white skin, her gray dress. A white haze crowded around her.

Instead of sobbing, staring at the shell of one’s body like the others, she had glided down the aisle with the ease and gave the impression of familiarity and routine., and Takayama, only a child, couldn’t help but stare. She must have noticed his staring, because she turned to him. And, he still can’t explain why, smiles. As if she knew something marvelous had come from the wreckage of a disaster.

Takayama faintly remembers looking into the mirror at the hospital, remembers staring in bewilderment at how his eyes, once dark brown, were now blood red.

The change in memory is enough to remind him he is no longer in third grade. He flexes his fingers beside him, blinks as he takes in the area around him. Karasuma is silent.

“I was the only surviving passenger,” Takayama continues, “and I haven’t seen her since.”

He taps on the ground with his fingers, drumming a simple beat.

“Though I wonder if she survived too…..or if she was ever a passenger at all.” 

He looks back at Karasuma, who hadn’t moved since Takayama started his tale.

“I guess that’s when my powers kicked in.”

“And the ghosts haven’t left you alone” Karasuma breathes, eyebrows knitted in sympathy and frustration.

Takayama feels himself smiling.

“Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> the blog for this AU is @birds-and-boos on tumblr btw!! Thanks for reading :D
> 
> Written 4/19/18


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